if these wings could fly
by DSForeverandAlways
Summary: A sequel to 'there's something in the way you look at me'. The years Dan and Serena spend alone after the trial, and the struggles to overcome their past, the murders, and the mess they left behind. "How could Dan have ever fallen in love with her, a woman with such a mad, broken soul?"
1. Chapter 1

_In the moment we're lost and found_

_I just wanna be by your side_

_If these wings could fly_

_Oh damn these walls_

_In the moment we're ten feet tall_

_And how you told me after it all_

_We'd remember tonight_

_For the rest of our lives_

Wings - Birdy

* * *

**Disclaimer:** All rights belong to the owner of the show and blah blah blah

A few months later, and here I am with a sequel to „There's something in the way you look at me". I had a sudden urge to write again a few nights ago, after not having any inspiration for months. I know I still have other fanfics to update, but I honestly don't feel like updating in the next few weeks, sorry. In the meantime, enjoy this sequel. Slow updates because school and stuff, sigh. This begins in Serena's time in the psychiatric ward, before she and Dan meet again. Huge Shoutout to Courtney for being my beta reader, ily.

* * *

There are no cures to fix her brain.

This is the first thing that her therapist at the psychiatric hospital, Doctor Grey, tells her.

But that's jumping ahead. Skipping the parts in between. The parts between seeing Dan for the last time and being taken to this hell hole, filled with people just like her. But those dark moments are hard to go back to. Because she never really said goodbye.

„There is no cure. But Sociopathy can be managed, Serena." Grey tells her, all calm, low tones to his voice.

Managed.

What a stupid phrase.

„As for your depression-"

„Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain." Serena recites, remembering words from the therapist that had treated her after her dad's death.

Grey tilts his head.

„That's a hypothesis."

„Nothing is certain." Serena says absentmindedly. „Not really. But people still act like they are. So why make any exception for a hypothesis?"

Grey's lips twitch just the slightest.

Serena thinks that perhaps she might learn to like Doctor Grey. If she could ever feel anything at all.

* * *

So. How she found herself in this hell hole.

Cuffs. Clinking chains. Hands wrapped around her arms.

They take her away from Dan.

The last time that she sees him, he looks ready to break, despite the nod he sends her way; despite the way she smiles at him beneath her hair; despite the way his fist curls around her note to him. He thinks he holds it together but he doesn't. She wants to break free and wrap him up in her arms, whisper into his hair again and again that she loves him. She needs this. She needs to suffer for what she's done. She's _sorry_. So sorry. She wishes he'd never been involved in any of it.

Her mouth opens to speak the words, but they get stuck. The officers push her down the stairs. And she never gets her closure.

He gets his note. He gets her love. He gets his closure.

She gets this. A grey corridor, clinking cuffs, passing through barred gates until she reaches the prison van.

Blood on her hands.

She gets this.

* * *

Between the courthouse and the prison van, there are reporters. Vultures. Each and every single damn one of them. With their yelling, their microphones, hordes crowding around her, pushing in, suffocating and blinding her with their lights.

She stumbles, lead only by the fierce grip of the officers that refuses to let her go. The officer yells at the crowds, forcing her way through. Serena respects that. The voices are too much for her. Too many questions and too many lights.

_How does a successful lawyer turn into a killer?_

_What do you have to say to the families of your victims?_

_Did you plan on killing Dan Humphrey too?_

She did.

Once.

(So many times.)

* * *

The hospital is white. Empty.

Corridors that make her shoes squeak. The smell of unbearable cleanliness that makes her nose scrunch, turning her head away as though she can escape it. As though she's not stuck here for an indefinite future.

The nure she is delivered to is dressed in white too, and if it weren't for the redness of her lips then perhaps she would blend into the wall. The thought makes Serena smirk.

„Clothes off. Change into these. Cops already searched you, but if you have any sharp or dangerous objects, hand them over." She tells you boredly, shoving a pile of clothes at you.

White underwear. White sweat pants. White top. Black ballet flats.

Huh. So it's one of those kinds of hospitals.

She changes out of the orange jumpsuit they'd forced her into, scowls back at the nurse as her eyes study the scars on her body. Shoves the new outfit on, scratchy against her skin. As she's passing the jumpsuit back to the nurse, she's wondering what kind of ridiculous theories Dan would be coming up with, the stories. She can almost hear him whispering in her ear, childish excitement radiating through his voice. A pang in her heart appears as quickly as it dissipates. No distractions.

The nurse shows her around her new „home" but Serena doesn't pay attention. There's too many people watching her out of the open hatches in their doors, wide eyes- crazy eyes. Is that what she looks like too?

How could Dan have ever fallen in love with her, a woman with such a mad, broken soul?

Finally, she's alone in her new room. Four white walls. With the smallest window that allows light in on one wall, barred on the outside, up high. She hadn't thought those still existed.

A white bed. Scratchy sheets. A bedside table with one drawer. „For your things." The nurse says, as though Serena has anything at all.

The nurse stops at the door. „Doctor Grey will want to see you once he's finished with another patient. I'll come and get you then. Time in the leisure room ends in two hours."

Serena lays down on her back, stares up at the white ceiling.

The nurse leaves.

Just another blur of white.

* * *

Doctor Grey is a calm man, Serena discovers. He ushers her into his office with a smile, gesturing for her to take a seat. He goes through the basics with her. Name, background, why she's here. And then he asks _her_ what she'd like to talk about.

There's a beat of silence, and then:

„I almost killed Dan." Serena says quietly.

Doctor Grey sits back in his chair, watching her, assessing. Does he see the crazy in her too? Has she just become another statistic? How can she get back to being normal, the way she was before?

„I love him and I almost killed him. So tell me, Doctor Grey, how I can make this- this sociopathy or whatever the hell it is _stop_ so I can just be a safe person to be around?"

Grey sighs, sets his pen down against the white paper. His room is the only one with any colour that she's been in so far. Brown, plush chairs, one huge, open window that allows her to see field upon field of green grass. A wooden statue beside her with no face. No identity. Nonetheless, the room is warm, normal. She wants to stay inside this cocoon of a room forever.

„Sociopathy didn't lead you to murder, Serena. Sociopaths are not violent by nature. It's a vastly misunderstood illness." He explains calmly. „But the lack of empathy can make you dangerous. And that's what I hope to help you understand."

„There's got to be a pill or- or something out there. To take the edge off." Serena says, desperate.

Grey nods calmly. „There are. A nurse will explain your medication to you after this meeting. But I think that what's the best for you, Serena, is to tackle depression. Then perhaps you'd be one step further in understanding what drove you to all of this."

„Depression isn't what led me to this. I know what did this. Other people forced me into this."

„But if you felt as though you had nothing to live for, why would you bother with anything at all?" Grey questions.

Serena visibly shrinks in her chair, tucking her legs beneath her as she flinches. „I had my dad's case. I had Dan." The tears prick her eyes. „I don't have anything to live for now."

„I can help you. But the question is whether you're ready."

Her shoulder's lift, a half-shrug.

„Dan wouldn't want me anyway. Not after everything I've done. Not after all the public humiliation he'll be faced with." She says dismissively.

Grey is silent for a moment, as though he's waiting for her to continue speaking. When she doesn't, he leans forward slightly, as though they've made some sort of progress.

„But what do _you_ want, Serena?"

Her tearful eyes raise to his.

„I want to suffer. For all the things I've done."

Grey tilts his head to his side. And she understands. She's still not quite sure why they diagnosed her with sociopathy either. She can feel.

In her heart, she can feel.

Guilt. Shame.

And everything unspoken that's reserved for Dan.

* * *

Serena spends a lot of time lying down in her bed. Dinner is optional for her, the nurse doesn't force her into the dining hall, and she spends the rest of the night cradling her empty stomach. Like some sort of self-punishment.

The tears appear infrequently. Her swollen eyes open now and again, finding the room dark, still empty, until suddently it is light. Morning.

When the nurse comes to the door, she decides that perhaps she will eat breakfast. It's easy. She just has to follow the woman to the dining hall. Simple. The food's already prepared for her. Easy.

But it's _not_. There are others. Other people. As she walks down the corridor, shoes scuffing the linoleum floor, others dressed just like her emerge from their rooms too. They shuffle along with her, and it's too invasive, too suffocating. Her world tilts on its axis for a moment, struck by the surrealism of being surrounded by so many ill individuals.

This will be every day for the rest of her life.

Serena stops, presses every inch of her body against the wall as though she could possibly escape here. This madness.

„I don't belong here." She says, fingernails curling into the wall, pain flaring in her fingers.

She makes a mental note to tell Doctor Grey in their next session. He'll release her. Surely. It looks like perhaps she was meant to go to prison after all.

(Would prison have been so much worse? It's so similar. High, barred windows. Soulless, empty individuals. A hollow ache in her heart.)

„I don't belong here!" She cries out, grabbing a nearby nurse by the arm. Steps forwards and presses her face close to the nurses, because how else will they listen? „Do you hear me? I don't _belong_ here."

„Guards! Miss van der Woodsen, let go of me." The nurse says calmly, even as she attempts to jerk her arm away, eyes scanning the room.

„Do you _understand_? I've made a mistake- I- You need to-" Serena struggles with the words, gripping the pale arm of her nurse tightly.

„Guards!"

She remembers how fragile skin is. How easy it is to pierce, to destroy, to burn. The red that blooms brightly, rushing out of skin so fast as though it has been yearning to escape the prison of the body for so long.

„It'll come to ya!" A blur of white yells.

„Miss van der Woodsen, please, you're upsetting the other patients."

Serena presses harder on the skin as the nurse struggles, knowing how it will bruise, the rupturing of blood vessels. How they bloom brightly and dull slowly, changing colours, almost chameleon-like.

„I'm not _crazy_." Serena insists.

She's just not sane.

„Please- You've got to let me out of here. Ask Doctor Grey, he'll tell…"

She doesn't finish her sentence. Because there's a sharp piece in her arm, and something zig-zags it way eagerly through her own bloodstream, making her mouth dry and the room spin until everything turns to black.

Her dreams are filled with Dan. And he holds her like everything's okay, when nothing ever has been.

* * *

**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

**if these wings could fly**

Thank you for all the positive reviews! This chapter is dedicated to justLykdat. Xx

* * *

"Is that what they do to everyone in maximum security?" Serena asks, tugging lightly on a strand of her long hair, avoiding Grey's eyes.

"Are you referring to the incident from last week?"

"Incident." Serena repeats, the taste of the word brittle in her mouth. "Yeah, I am."

"Only to those that seem to be causing a danger to themselves and those around them. The staff here are simply trying to help you, Miss van der Woodsen-"

"Serena."

She looks up, meets his eyes. "My name is Serena." She repeats softly.

Grey nods slowly, eyes flicking down to the piece of paper in front of him. His fingers twitch slightly, as though he's about to reach for his pen. They stop twitching as subtly as they had started. Serena wonders for a moment if she's made some progress or if she'll simply continue to keep on going backwards. That's all she's ever done since her dad was killed. Sometimes when she closes her eyes it feels like the world keeps on spinning but she's trapped as a frightened young girl who doesn't quite know what to do with herself anymore, who feels like everything has split in two and she's falling through the chasm in the middle. With nobody left to save her.

"Okay. Serena." Grey says, nodding. "Do you want to talk about what happened?"

Serena purses her lips, eyes flitting over to the large window in Grey's office. She sees many other patients roaming the grounds, some accompanied by nurses, some in groups, but mostly keeping to themselves. There's a dull ache in her chest as she watches, wondering what it feels like for fresh air to wrap around her body, to feel the sun on her face instead of through a barred window. Strange how she'd taken her freedom for granted before.

"I wasn't a danger to anyone." Serena says simply.

"You physically harassed a nurse, Serena. You upset several other patients. Are you sure you didn't feel any violent tendencies?"

Serena's hands curl into fists, heavy like stone in her lap as her jaw clenches. "I'm not regressing." She says through gritted teeth, continuing to watch outside. "I just needed someone to understand. I don't belong here. I'm not crazy. Please, send me to prison if you have to, so I can still suffer. Just not here. I belong with the waste, with the criminals, the very essence of evil. Not here."

She looks over to Grey, hoping to find some sort of understanding. But his expression remains neutral, inherently objective.

"Would you rather be in prison, Serena?"

Serena loos over to the view outside of the window again. Sighs at the dream of being able to roam, to not have to stick to a schedule, to not be threatened with isolation at the refusal to take her medication. To wear her own clothes and shower without the fear of being walked in on, to see anything other than the four walls of her room.

"Will I ever be able to do that?" Serena says, gesturing outside. She knows Grey's technique now. He always replies with a question, hoping that she'll reveal more of the puzzle pieces of herself to him so that he can help put them back together again. But she doesn't want to play along anymore.

"That's for minimum security patients with special privileges. Do you understand why you're in maximum security, Serena?"

She almost rolls her eyes at his insistence to question her. Counters his questions with her own, again.

"Yeah, but will I ever be able to have that?"

Grey hesitates before he replies. "Maybe. If you work hard enough. Can you tell me why you'd want that, Serena?"

If Serena squints when she looks out at the gardens, she can almost see her and Dan wandering hand-in-hand. Not a care in the world except for those in their hearts.

* * *

Dan startles awake with a yell, dripping head to toe in ice cold water, shivering.

"Ah! What the hell?!"

Milo stands by his bedside, holding the now empty bucket of water, eyebrows raised. "Are you gonna get out of bed?"

He swings his legs over the bed, dripping water onto the floor of his room already. He stares in bewilderment at his son as he shivers. His son simply looks completely indifferent, staring him down. Since when had Milo been so- so full of attitude?

"Well I am now that you practically drowned me." Dan deadpans. "I mean, seriously, what the hell, Milo?"

Milo sighs, setting the bucket down before gingerly sitting beside him on the bed. Milo looks down, hiding his face from him. But Dan puts his chin up, because he had abandoned his son when he had sworn he never would from the day he was born, and ne never wants to be distanced from him again.

"Hey." He says, softer now. "What's wrong?"

Milo looks up from his lap to him, brown eyes welling with the minutest of tears. Dan's struck breathless by it for a moment, because his son doesn't cry. Not ever. His son is strong, or he had been, and if it were not for his actions then perhaps Milo wouldn't be so world-weary now. His shoulders would be lighter, not hunched taut, like Atlas.

"I miss you, Daddy."

His voice is quiet, so Dan reaches out hesitantly, wrapping a hand around his. It's limp in his grip.

"I'm right here."

"Physically, yeah. But..." Milo shrugs, a tear slipping from his eyes. "I don't know. You haven't been the same for a while now."

No. He doesn't- He doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to remember any of it. If he can just stick to staring at Serena's note every night, it's enough. If he can close his eyes and remember how she laughed and how it filled him to the brim, his heart overflowing with his overzealous love for her, it's enough.

He doesn't want to remember how he shot a man to save her life and she covered up for it. That body still hasn't been found. He doesn't want to remember how she murdered in cold blood, the distant look in her eyes as she approached him with a weapon in hand and promised him that she loved him, even as she planned to murder him.

"I thought we talked about this, Milo." He protests weakly.

"You dance around the subject all the time, Dad. Just like you're doing now." Milo murmurs, hand gripping his suddenly, eyes burning into his. "And you sleep all the time and never talk or joke or eat and you haven't even noticed that I told you that there's this girl in my class and I really like her. And I want my Dad back. I want you to joke with me and do completely _stupid_ things for your books and tell me everything will be okay even if you don't know that it will. I want to see you smile again and I hate that she robbed that of you."

"She didn't- Milo..." His voice is thick with emotion, his words getting stuck somewhere.

"She did. And maybe she didn't mean to do it, and maybe she loved you and you loved her, but she's gone now and it's _over_, Dad." Milo's voice turns gentle suddenly, compassion leaking from his eyes. "I know it's hard to get over. But you've got to try, Dad. You won't get anywhere if you don't try."

They sit in companionable silence for a moment, staring at their laced hands. His skin is so much more frail compared to his. How can he not understand that all of this, everything that happened and everything that's been caused at the consequence, was all for Milo? He just didn't want him to get hurt. Now look what he's done. He's ruined everything, not just himself.

He leans into his son slightly, smirking whe Milo flinches at his wet clothes. Presses a kiss against his son's hair. "I love you, Milo. More than anything. More than anyone."

"Love you too, Daddy." He whispers, letting him wipe away his tears.

Milo hasn't done that since he was five.

* * *

She thinks about him between the spaces of every heartbeat.

And the spaces between each blink.

* * *

Dan stands hesitantly before the plain white door, hand raised mid-air. Does he really have the right to be here? He knows that he promised, but he told her a lot of other things too, and he had all these dreams that had never worked out, so why on Earth would he torture himself like this by continuing to blur these dreams with reality?

His hand falls to the wooden door regardless. Knocks once. Waits patiently. Knocks again. There's shuffling on the other side of the door so he waits agains, hands shoved into his pockets.

The door opens slowly, a woman with blonde hair just like Serena's is answering the door with a worn, tired face. Her facial expression changes once she sees Dan, though, standing up straight and staring at him with eyes of steel. "Yes?"

"Uh, hi, Mrs van der Woodsen. I'm Dan-"

"I know who you are, Mr Humphrey." Lily replies, smirking. "If I'm not mistaken, you're the reason my daughter decided to commit herself to a psychiatric ward for the rest of her life."

"Oh- I- Uh." Dan stammers, face turning a light of shade red.

Lily sighs. "What do you want, Mr Humphrey?"

Dan looks down at his feet, then back up at Lily once again. The woman still glares at him, no matter how sorry he tries to be.

"I- I promised Serena that I'd look out for you while she... I mean, she told me about... I- I don't wanna let her down. Again."

Lily nods slowly, accepting the news.

"Tell me one thing, Mr Humphrey."

"Anything, ma'am."

"Did you love her? Did you love my daughter?"

Oh. How could she- Who could ever doubt his love, his devotion, his irrevocable admiration for her?

"I love her. Present tense."

Lily smiles, body language lighter now. She steps back into her apartment. "Come in, Mr Humphrey."

* * *

She hears the shuffling of feet every now and then, hears the laughter of Mindy, another patient, and her parents in the visitor room. Serena presses her face against the small square gap in her door and watches the nurses bustle past, carrying forms or lost medication and sometimes, the medication they give to patients when they need to be moved to isolation. Serena's witnessed it happen a couple of times in the four months she's been here- The way the patient's knees buckle beneath them so quickly after ingesting it, their eyes falling closed, caught only be the gentle hands of nurses. Sometimes she's not quite sure if that's even legal.

A nurse walking pust- Nurse Connelly- spots Serena staring through the door and stops as she passes. "Got a problem, van der Woodsen?"

Serena likes Nurse Connelly. She's direct, and not falsely sympathetic like the other nurses. Sometimes Nurse Connelly will slip her a sleeping pill when she notices how red Serena's eyes are from another night of not sleeping, or how hoarse her voice is from a night of screaming about the nightmares.

"Why do Mindy's parents still visit her even though she's crazy?" Serena asks, heart thumping in her chest.

The nurse frowns. "You know you ain't 'sposed to use that word in here."

"And you know how to speak properly, but you don't see me complaining."

Nurse Connelly smirks, moving closer to Serena's door. "You don't have family, van der Woodsen?"

"I do. My Mom. She's on my visitor's list. But we don't...We're distant." Serena says around the lump in her throat.

Nurse Connelly nods slowly. "You miss her? Your Mom?"

"I didn't see him much before I was in this five star joint anyway." Serena drawls, avoiding her emotions.

"And what about that writer guy? You miss him too?"

Serena pushes away from the door, retreating further into her room as the Nurse watches. "Who- Who told you-?"

"You were all over the news, van der Woodsen. Not like I wasn't ever gonna find out." She tilts her head. "Do you miss him?"

"They wouldn't let me put him on my vistor's list." Serena whispers, nails digging into her palms.

"Well, I ain't gonna say I'm surprised, van der Woodsen. You pulled one hell of a stunt with that guy. Ain't exactly ethical. Not that I blame you. I'da done anything to have my wicked way with him too."

Serena shakes her head from side to side, at a loss for words. She likes direct, but not invasive, and this is bordering on harassment. Nurse Connelly isn't her therapist. She doesn't have the right to comment on such personal things, and Serena doesn't have to share anything with her. Just because they're amicable and sometimes she makes her smile, it doesn't make them friends.

No, she lost her friends a long time ago. She hadn't asked to have them put on her visitor's list. She knew that they wouldn't come. And even if they had, she would probably refuse to see them anyway.

Nurse Connelly smirks, walking on and tossing over her shoulder, "See ya, van der Woodsen."

Serena crawls under the covers of her bed and remembers the way Dan's skin had felt against hers, just right, like home.

And not for the first time, she wonders where he is, if he's found someone new, if he even thinks of her anymore. The damaged woman with a ghost heart.

Drifting, endlessly.

* * *

**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

**if these wings could fly**

I'm so sorry for the late update, school got in the way and I had to study for exams sigh. Can't wait for Winter Break ;) Also, as a way of saying 'thank you' for all the support, I have a surprise for you guys, starting on December 1st. Until then, enjoy the November. Xx

* * *

She wakes from a nap to the sound of banging, disorientated for one moment before her eyes adjust and she recognizes the same grey four walls she's adjusted to seeing every day for the past six months. For a moment she thinks the nurse is waking her for dinner or possibly ten minute checks- the checks had grown outrageously frequent since another inmate three doors down from her had tried to slit their throat with a bed spring. But then, with a jangle of keys, Nurse Connelly opens the door and spills the corridor light across Serena's eyes.

She flinches, holding a hand up. "What d'ya want?" She slurs, half-asleep. One of the side effects of her medication.

"You've got a visitor, van der Woodsen. C'mon. Up'n at 'em."

Serena swings her feet from the bed, stretching before she stands. "But you've not given me a chance to get changed into my party dress." She drawls.

"My apologies, Cinderella. C'mon."

Serena shoves her shoes on and shuffles after the nurse, brushing her hair from her face with her fingers. It's longer than she's ever had it. Limp, lifeless, probably from the medication or the not-so-nutritious meals that she's been forced to suffer with here. Or perhaps from how she rarely showers, fearing someone will walk in on her in the shower that doesn't lock- for safety reasons, though that doesn't feel safe to her at all.

Connelly opens the door to the visitor's room, squeezes Serena's elbow lightly. "Listen, van der Woodsen... Someone's always gonna love you. Even if you're crazy."

Serena studies Connelly, the pale arc of her cheekbones, the light bulge of her blue eyes. She's a beautiful woman. Too beautiful for a place like this, filled with so many dark, lost souls. Maybe there's a story to her. A reason why she's here, instead of a place where she fits in, where she belongs. Dan would know her story. Just like he practically knew hers from the beginning. Dan always knew.

"Maybe if I'm crazy. But not when I'm a murderer. Never then." Serena mumbles, throat tight.

Connelly nods slowly. "You ain't like the others, van der Woodsen. Don't let 'em tell you any different."

And then she nudges Serena through the door.

Lily van der Woodsen waits patiently by one of the barred windows, the only giveaway of her nerves the gentle trap of her fingers against the windowpane. Serena stares, transfixed for a moment, at her mother. Her gentle, alcoholic mother. Softened at the edges by the dull light that leaks through the window, world-weary in the tension of her shoulders, still hopeful by the tilt of her lips when she registers her presence.

Lily turns, slowly, and it's then that Serena realises she hasn't seen her mother in- Well, she doesn't know. Years. Maybe. She hadn't turned up to her trial. She had never expected her to. And she hadn't seen her in person before that since she'd left New York. Always too busy ignoring her drunken calls to care. She doesn't deserve her mother's love. Not now.

Her eyes are kinder than they used to be.

"Hey, Serena."

No judgement. No resentment. Like she's speaking to the innocent, hopeful 19 year old version of herself that she had lost a long time ago.

"Mom." She chokes out, and then she's in her arms.

Lily wraps her like a child in her arms, like she's trying to reverse everything, holding her so tightly it feels like she's being suctioned from this world and to one more peaceful. Far more innocent. She likes it and so she snuggles deeper, thinking that maybe her mother's hug could reverse this whole thing, remove from this planet, take her somewhere warm. How long has it been since she was loved?

"I'm sorry." She sobs out, hands fisting in her jacket. "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm so sorry."

"Shh, Serena." Her hands are so still against her cheek, capturing tears. Why aren't they shaking? Where's the alcoholic she used to know? "There's nothing to be sorry for."

She hiccups a laugh against her shoulders. "Not the murders?"

She feels the tension wrap around Lily like a forgotten blanket, drowning the both of them in freezing water. She pulls away from her as quickly as she had gathered her in her arms, taking several steps backwards before stopping. Serena lets out a breath she hadn't realised she had been holding. Maybe she's not so different after all.

"You used to cry on my shoulder about boys."

A thinly veiled jab at her mental state.

"Are you still drinking, Mom?" She counters.

Her eyes are kinder. But they're so tired. Her own drift close for a moment, just looking at them.

"No. But I can't promise I'll stay off it. It's not your fault, Serena."

"I know. I know you try, Mom."

Her eyes open again when she feels a touch on her hand. Her mother squeezes her hand lightly, attempting at a reassuring smile.

"It's not your fault Serena. It never was."

Her throat is dry when she tries to speak, a scratchy noise emitting from her lips that doesn't make any sense. She closes her mouth and simply nods, the protest dying too quickly, guilt settling too deeply in her lungs. She doesn't want to fight. She is just so tired of fighting, all the time, and it gets her nowhere. Just four grey walls and a man who thinks that there's something wrong with her brain that staying here could possibly fix.

Sometimes when she cannot sleep she stands and when she presses her hands against the wall-

She pulls them away to find blood handprints lingering. Scarlet. Bold. The blood never fades, no matter how much she scrubs her skin, tries to wash it away with her tears and her sweat and everything else that falls between.

"I'm sorry I've taken so long to visit, Serena."

She blinks, slowly coming back to the present.

"But I'm glad that you gave yourself up. I'm glad you stopped."

She sniffs, wiping at her wet cheeks with her sleeve, feeling it scratch against her skin. "I'm glad too. I...Mom, I caught the guy. I caught Mortem. He killed Dad."

Emotion scratches Lily's eyes, but she simply smiles again, squeezing her shoulders. Like she doesn't want to talk about it. Like there's nothing to talk about. When really it drove her to the bottom of a bottle and it consumed her whole life. Lead them to this. Two fractured souls who had lost the pieces to fix themselves a long time ago.

"I thought it would feel different to this. I thought it..." She blinks desperately, willing the tears not to fall anymore. "I just thought it would feel different."

Lily nods slowly, moving away and to the window again. Effectively ending their, ultimately one-sided, conversation on William.

Her mother is quiet when she speaks. "About Dan..."

She backs away quickly, shaking her head, his name setting fire to her insides.

"I don't want to talk about him."

"Just tell me one thing, Serena."

"One thing?"

"One thing and then I'll drop it."

She breathes in. Out. Like Grey told her.

"Okay. One thing."

"Did you love him?"

She looks down, picks at the loose thread of her sleeve. How does she explain how his name is setting fire to her insides, that she can feel it burning away at everything, the flames licking her heart, so that Lily knows he is the only one she ever thinks about? How can she explain that they were only ever lovers for one night, but she could see a future she knew they could never have in his eyes? How can she explain that she would do anything- absolutely _anything_- to have any other life but this one so that she could make him happy, instead of destroying everything in his life? How could all of that be summed up in one word? Love.

Huh. The semantics of it all.

"Still do, Mom." She eventually replies. "Still do."

* * *

The FBI- who had handled Serena's case- never allowed him his Sabrina plans back. Nor the drafts of things he'd written. They'd claimed it was evidence. They'd even taken the file he'd started creating the night he'd met her. No matter how many strings he'd tried to pull, he couldn't get them back.

"You think she'd mind?"

Lily looks up from her coffee, across to Dan who sits on the other side of the café table. Her hands are shaking today. Dan doesn't have much hope that the woman will stay away from the drink. Something like guilt slivers into his heart. He's failing Serena. Even after all this time. Failing her time and time again.

"No... No, I don't think she would."

So after eight months of her being away and trying to get his life back together, he finally sits before his laptop and presses keys that make the words appear. He knows more now. He knows her story. He knows her old friends, he knows where she is now, and maybe he doesn't know when she'll get out.

But he knows he won't see her again.

So he plans and drafts and begins to write the story she was supposed to have. A successful lawyer. Surrounded by friends. Loved. Searching for answers. Seeking.

Finding him.

Falling in love. Freely.

Even if she had never planned that along the way.

* * *

"How are you feeling today, Serena?"

Serena's lips form a watery smile as she looks over at Grey.

"Jumbled."

"Jumbled. Did you not sleep last night, Serena?"

She shakes her head, feeling the tips of her hair brush against her elbows. "No. Not one bit."

Honesty. It's the only thing that keeps her sane in this place. Sometimes it feels like Grey is the only one that's listening to her. But then again, when would she ever listen to anyone else's problems in this hell hole? No. She's selfish. She always has been. Doctor Grey is a saint. A sense of hope. He's the only one here that sees something in her other than a mental illness that she can't control. She is not her illness. She is human.

And she is vulnerable as any other.

"Why don't you sleep, Serena?"

"Sometimes. In my dreams." She looks down at her hands. Everything is fractured. Nothing. Lasting. "I do it. Again. I kill. So many innocent people. Their blood on my hands. On my wall. And I like it. I love it."

Grey's silent, assessing her, or perhaps waiting for her to offer more information. To make sense. But doesn't he see that she can't make sense of it herself? If she could stop feeling this way. She would. But she is jumbled. Thoughts tumbling through her that don't make sense, ones she doesn't want to feel, some sick desires occurring to her when she stares at the fragile skin of other inmates as they eat.

"I don't want to kill." She whispers, hands shaking, so she balls them into fists.

"Would you kill again, Serena? If you were given the chance?"

She stares, unseeing, through the window. Tears blur her vision.

"Serena?"

"I don't know. I-I don't know."

Grey says nothing, so she volunteers more information.

"It's been a year since I came here."

A year since she had last seen Dan. Across a room. Content with her goodbye. Over a year since she had last touched him, smelt him, felt the way he moved against her skin, the way he tasted on her tongue. But years since freedom. Or was Dan freedom? He hadn't freed her. This had all happened. Or was this freedom? Recovering? Was it freedom? It doesn't feel like freedom. It feels jumbled.

She closes her eyes against the tide of emotions. Maybe it will all just go away.

Maybe she will, too. Maybe she could just. Stop. Become nothing.

"Serena, you've made excellent progress since you've been here. You're one of my finest patients. I don't believe that what you're experiencing is a relapse."

"But-"

"Everybody has days where they feel like the world is moving without them. That they're moving backwards while everything else carries on like it should. While you're experience is far more serious, it's okay to feel this way."

She opens her eyes. "It's okay to want to kill people?"

Grey smiles. "It's okay to be afraid."

Serena's mouth opens but nothing comes out, and she closes her eyes.

Every day. She is afraid.

Afraid of not getting better. Afraid of being stuck here forever.

Afraid of getting better. And facing the real world. A world without Dan. Because she couldn't ever drag him back into this, not even if he wanted to be with her. Could she?

* * *

She's moved out of maximum security three months later.

* * *

**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

**if these wings could fly**

* * *

**A/N: Hi, hello, hola, here have an update and a lovely Tuesday ;) Xx**

* * *

"No, Georgina." Dan grits out.

"Oh c'mon, Humphrey. Think of the sales, the publicity-"

"I've already had enough publicity when it comes to Serena. Enough to last a lifetime." Dan says morosely, mind flitting back to the paparazzi that had hounded him during the trial. Had said such _horrible_ things about Serena. Things he won't forget.

The paparazzi still linger. Sometimes. The always will do, due to his fame. But even now, almost two years later, the occasional reporter will approach him. For an exclusive interview. Or a statement. Something to clear what really happened. Tell the world all. And all he wants to do is remove that from his life, and the only way of doing so is with this book. Inside. Well, a series. He already sees the veins of the life she was supposed to have stretching before him, unraveling him and the only way he will survive is by using his words, their blood, to pump life through what was forgotten. What had never happened. But should have.

"Honestly, after the stunt you've pulled, you can't be surprised they're trying to do this to you." Georgina, his publicist, says as she places her purse on the kitchen counter. "You're lucky they're going to publish that book, anyway."

He laughs at that one. "Yeah, right. Georgina, they've practically bent over backwards to make sure they could get this. The money..." He shakes his head with a sigh.

Georgina pouts. "Okay, okay, so you've still got a thing for the chick. But, Dany, it's a brilliant idea. With the release party on the same day, you could get it all out of your system, there's always a blonde willing-"

"No!" He cries, spinning to look at her with wide eyes. "Dammit Georgina, I said no!"

He refuses to be stuck in a room. Dressed up. With people he doesn't know. Stuffy businessmen, and glamorous businesswomen. On the second anniversary of Serena's sentence. Surrounded by blonde women who only want him to sign their chests, who flutter their eyelashes, trying to make him fall in bed with them like he would've done before Serena. But it would be betraying her.

As the release date for Inside approaches, he finds his thoughts steadfastly focused on her. Especially after they'd forced him to place a heated scene into the book, claiming it would be perfect for the characters, it would be the Dan Humphrey they used to know before all of this happened. And he couldn't stop thinking about her skin. So soft and lovely and interrupted with scars. The way it tasted against his tongue. The smooth, warm curves of her, how there was still more of her to map. Every map starts out empty, after all.

And then these thoughts bring him to her smile. A little cracked around the edges. Her eyes. Just a little too haunted. How in that one night with her he could feel. Everything.

And it had all ben taken away from him.

"Sorry. I'm sorry, Georgina. I shouldn't have yelled." He says, breaking himself from his stupor. Georgina's still eyeing him warily. "Did the publishing company send you?"

Georgina shrugs. "You weren't answering their calls. It's not like I enjoy doing their work for them."

He pinches the bridge of his nose. Breathes in and out and then in again. One for luck. "Okay. Okay, I'll call her and sort things out. But it's not being released that day. You hear me?"

Georgina grabs her purse, rolling her eyes. "Fine."

She stops before she reaches the door. Turns to him. "They say they need the dedication by tomorrow morning at the latest."

He nods. "Got it."

She hesitates again. Genuine concern fills her eyes. "Are you okay, Dan?"

His heart constricts for a moment. Knowing all these people that he's known for such a long time care about him. And all he ever does is wallow. Never living. Just existing through the words on the printed page.

"Yeah." He says. "Yeah, I'm fine."

It may just be the biggest lie he's ever told.

* * *

He comes up with the dedication at 3am the next day. Looking at a photo of a fresh-faced Serena van der Woodsen, recently gaduated from High School, that her mother had given him. He can't stop thinking about how wonderful she could've been. Her eyes. Haunted but not with the ghosts that seep blood onto her hands now. Recovering. Not falling.

Extraordinary.

_To the extraordinary SvdW. We're connected, we always will be._

All the beautiful prose. Poetry. All of it on this planet. None of it could ever explain that tight feeling in his chest when she smiled at him. Like maybe. Just maybe. Everything could be alright. Until it wasn't.

* * *

It's not her fault.

It's not her fault that she was placed in solitary.

"Serena?"

She doesn't look up at Doctor Grey. Continues to stare at that dark stain on the carpet, wondering how it got there. Was it another patient? Did they knock something over? Was it an accident? Was it on purpose? How violent was it? Was there blood?

How can she stop herself from seeing blood, all the time?

"I don't want to talk about it." Serena mutters disdainfully.

Grey's quiet for a moment, and finally she lifts her gaze, over to the window. Stares at the others in the garden. She _loved_ having that privilege. She had been able to wear her own clothes. Only had hourly checks. Her medication had been reduced, she'd been less fuzzy in her mind, less nauseous. And she could roam the gardens and feel the sun on her face and pretend that Dan was there. With her. All it took was to close her eyes. Imagine his phantom hand in hers. Like two normal individuals, stuck still while the Earth keeps spinning.

Now that she's been in solitary, those privileges have been revoked. Half-hour checks, her medication being considered changed, having to walk around the gardens in a group with a nurse. She's not been moved back to maximum security, but deep down in her heart, she is absolutely terrified that they'll move her back there.

"Serena, I think it would be in your interest to talk about the incident."

"In almost two years there have only ever been two incidents. One on my second day of being here. And this recent one _wasn't_ caused by me-"

"Then who was it caused by, Serena?"

Damn. He has her there. She chuckles, simultaneously outraged but completely tired of it. This place. Grey. Missing Dan. Every day.

"Carly Reed. She started it."

Her lips quirk. She sounds like a kid in middle school.

How her heart aches to be there again. She would make so many different choices. Stupid, meaningless ones. Like not letting that boy feel under her top just because her friends told her she should. Revising for that calculus test instead of cramming that morning, resulting in a C-. But the bigger things too. Telling her Dad she loved him more often than she ever did, instead of brushing him off and acting the teenager facade. Preventing herself from getting too involved in her Dad's case, from allowing it to be so destructive that she loses her job and becomes- this.

And Dan.

Well, she'd never have ruined him at all.

"How did she cause the incident, Serena?"

Serena huffs, finally turning to Grey. "It was over medication. She found out that I was being given sleeping pills and she had been rejected them when she'd asked for the. That was it."

Grey nods slowly. Silence.

She rolls her eyes. "We were at the nurse's station, collecting our medication. So that's when she noticed and she tried to grab for them. I made her back off."

Grey checks one of the pieces of paper he has jumbled between various forms. Her record. Huh. As though her record could be any more tainted than it has been by the fraud, the murders. This is nothing. This is not a relapse. She will not go back to that. She must get better. At least, that's what she thought she had to do. Now she's not so sure. She doesn't know the outside world, and most of her doesn't want to get to know it.

Here... It's not the best. The windows have to be opened by a nurse and they open so minutely that only her fingers wedged between the frame and the windowpane can feel any breeze. And the food makes her stomach feel empty, no matter how much she eats. And most nights the only thing preventing herself from ripping apart the bedsheets and making herself a noose is the thought of being caught and being placed on suicide watch. All privileges revoked. And she spends most of her time tucked up in her room with a journal so that she can avoid the others, the ones that yell, the ones that throw fits and can't control their minds.

But. She always has a bed. And routine. And the nurses may be could- she misses Nurse Connelly, had been sad to say goodbye when she'd left maximum security- but they care for her, they give her the medication she needs and make sure she's occupied and some try to make small talk with her. And Doctor Grey listens to any thing she says. Pries her emotions open gently, until they're all flooding out and it's like being relieved of the weight of the world, like Atlas.

It's the closest to home she's had since she was 19.

"According to my records, Serena, Carly wound up with a hairline fracture and a broken arm. That's a big leap from making her, as you said, back off. The nurses that tried to stop you also received a bloody nose and the other fractured ribs."

She swallows nervously. Closes her eyes. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Serena, I thought that you'd learned that repressing your emotions only worsen the situation."

She pries one eye open nervously. Stares into his honest eyes. "Will you move me back to maximum security? Put me back in isolation?"

He doesn't ever answer questions, Grey, so she's not surprised by his response. "Do you feel I ought to recommend you're placed back there?"

She shudders. Feels the cold, the dread, sep down her spine slowly until her spine is encased with ice. Never. Never does she want to go back there.

"I stopped myself, and that's what matters. Isn't it?"

"Stopped yourself from what, Serena?"

"From- From my old habits. God, it was just... I never enjoyed it. I didn't. Killing. Not like... Not how Sociopaths are supposed to. Not like that category they've put me in. But after a while, it didn't matter that much. After a while, it was just a job, and I convinced myself that they deserved it. And for a moment, my mind, with Carly- I was convinced she deserved it. But once that nurse started bleeding... I stopped."

She confesses it all in a whisper. Because if she says these words, that makes them true.

"You're right. You did stop. And that does matter." Grey sets a pen down on his paper. "But do you believe you'd still be capable of that level of violence, Serena? Murder?"

The tears scratch away at her eyes until she has no choice but to let them fall. Damn it. Damn it all, this stupid life, this hospital, Grey. Herself. She wants any life but this one. To be anyone but herself.

"I never thought I could do it in the first place. Until I did. And then it stopped mattering. And then it was nothing."

She thinks. Maybe.

It still is.

* * *

He and Lily sit in his car like they always do when Lily visits Serena. Only, this time, Lily is holding a book. Inside.

It's been two and a half years since she had been taken away from him and every day Dan feels his heart numb just a little bit more. Dull in colour, through his blood, spreading it through his veins until he is grey on the inside. Hope lacking.

"_Please_, Dan." Lily says into the silence of the car. "It would benefit her. So much. She talks about you every time I visit her."

He looks over at the woman, greying, hands still shaking because of the alcohol. Dan understands why Serena was always so tired of the woman's alcoholism now. It hurts to watch. To watch her destroy herself and make empty promises that she'll get better.

It must be a van der Woodsen thing.

"She'll know I've been meeting up with you regularly. And, while I promised her I'd watch out for you... I think that would kill her."

"She would be grateful."

"She'd figure it out. That I bring you here each time. Being so close to her, just outside the damn hospital, kills me as it is. It would destroy her, ma'am."

Lily is silent, staring at the book she holds in her hands.

"So why am I giving her this book? How will that make anything better for her? There's nothing personal about this. Your names aren't even the same in here."

"It has... Everything."

Lily sighs. "Just sign the damn book. _Please._ If you ever loved her."

No. _No_. He will not play up to that.

"I'm doing this because I love her. Because those words in that book... They're all I have for her. I was never enough. And I have nothing left to say."

Lily breathes quietly in the silence, but it fills up all the room. "I thought that you would wait forever for my daughter, Dan."

"It's a finite world we live in, Lily." He says. Stares straight ahead at the plain, unassuming building. "Nothing lasts forever."

But. Always.

Always exists.

* * *

She cannot believe her eyes when her mother passes her the book.

"This is an advanced copy. It's being released next week."

She holds it in her hands, feels the weight of it, the glossy cover of the hardback. But it doesn't feel real. When does she wake up from this dream?

"Dan gave this to you?" His name cracks into two on her tongue.

Her mother nods hesitantly. "Yes. Yes, he gave it to me."

She blinks back the tears rapidly, feeling her heart burst inside her chest. Into stares. Constellations. Infinite.

"He lookin' out for you, Mom?"

"Well, I... I'd say he's looking out for the both of us."

"Yeah." She agrees, cradling her book to her chest. Precious. Hope. Light. "Yeah, that's Dan."

Her mother smiles. "Check the dedication, honey."

Her numb, shaking fingers pry the book open slowly, as she holds her breath. Her mother hovers over her, waiting for the worst. A terrible reaction. Disappointment, maybe. Guilt. Maybe all of those things she feels every day. Hanging over her like an oppressive weight. But not now. Now she's free. this. It's more. Than she could ever explain. It's fractured her. Rendered her. Speechless. Nervous. Like a teenager on her first date.

The words appear and they will never leave her.

_To the extraordinary SvdW. We're connected, we always will be._

A sob escapes her, but when her mother attempts to hold her in her arms, she steps away from her embrace. Constellations dusting across her insides, setting everything from dark to light. Like a switch that she had never figured out how to switch on.

She smiles brightly it's a wonder her face doesn't split in two.

"If you see him again. Dan. Tell him... Tell him I said thank you."

Lily watches her carefully. "Just thank you?"

Her teardrops land on the words. "For everything. Always."

* * *

His heart is pounding when Lily appears from the doors, clambering back into the car. He doesn't move. Doesn't speak. Doesn't even dare to breathe.

"She said thank you. For everything. Always."

What he wouldn't do to hear those words in person. To feel them wrap around his heart with the lilt of her voice, probably tight with tears she'd pretend don't exist. To see her smile. Those eyes as she looks at him. Just one more time.

Oh, what he wouldn't do.

* * *

**TBC**


End file.
